The Consummation of Praise
I don’t know about you, but I have always struggled with poetry. And by struggle I mean that I haven’t particularly liked it. Most of the stuff I was introduced to in high school was the open-verse kind – no meter, no rhyme scheme. I’m sure if I was smarter or worked on it longer, I might find Whitman or Dickenson or Hughes illuminating. Perhaps I’m too simple, but for my lights good poetry is not mainly a puzzle to unlock.
Let’s try a relevant example for our sesquicentennial year. Maybe you know it.
Listen my children, and you shall hear,
of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
On the eighteenth of April in seventy-five
hardly a man is now alive
who remembers that famous day and year.
Poetry is designed to be memorable and meaningful and to produce a certain kind of response.
I love the ending:
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
In April of 1860, Longfellow wrote Paul Revere’s Ride as our nation stood on the precipice of Civil War. He wanted to remind a very divided country of an important story of courage and sacrifice from America’s founding generation. And he longed to impact their affections — encouraging fellow abolitionists to take heart and to act with urgency and end the injustice of chattel slavery.
That’s what great poetry does: it captures a narrative in a memorable way — a way that communicates truth beautifully and awakens the reader’s affections and actions.
This is how Psalm 104 works. It is different than Psalm 8 (“you have set your glory above the heavens”) or Psalm 19 (“the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork), because not only is Psalm 104 a poem with vivid, worship-evoking imagery, it is a poetic retelling of an important story: Genesis 1-3. It’s literally a song—the Psalmist’s cover of Moses’s narrative account.
And like Paul Revere’s Ride, the retelling of God’s work in Creation (vv2-30) communicates truth beautifully and awakens our affections and actions. It calls us (v1) to bless the Lord and (v31-35) fuels the consummation of that praise.
Let’s take this poem in those three steps.
The call to praise (v1)
The cause for praise (vv2-30)
The consummation of praise (vv31-35)
1. The Call to Praise
While the Hebrew text doesn’t ascribe this Psalm to David, both the Greek translation of the Old Testament and the Dead Sea scrolls label this a Davidic Psalm. Especially because the Psalmist begins, as David did in 103, by calling on his soul: “Bless the Lord, O my soul.”
David is telling himself, “slow down, shut off the music, put away the phone, and look – I mean really look.” This isn’t just a looking with the eyes. As we heard, vv2-30 are full of vivid imagery – things that David certainly would have seen: lightning, storm clouds, the sea, the mountains; streams, birds, donkeys, and so on. But David is doing more than observing – he is lovingly turning over in his mind what he sees; pondering it; examining it in light of the story of creation. In verse 34 David calls this way of looking “meditation.”
Verse 34, May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.
We’ll come back to this, but for the moment notice that the call to bless the Lord is grounded not only in what David sees but in who he sees by it. His meditation on God’s work in Genesis 1-3 produces a delight that bubbles up at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the Psalm.
2. The Cause
Let’s turn to examine the cause for this delight. David goes back to Genesis 1 and 2 to give six reasons creation is a cause for blessing the Lord.
Reason #1: God is great in the heavens (1b-4).
Look at verses 1-4. Can you hear Genesis 1?
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God of was hovering over the waters. And God said “let there be light.” And there was light (Gen 1.1-3).
And so David proclaims, God is clothed with splendor and majesty, robed in light. He hangs the stars and the planets. He establishes the atmosphere. He stores up the rain and builds his throne above the earth. He is swift and mighty as the wind and he bridles the great thunderclouds. The greatest forces of the universe are under his sovereign control: “he lays, he makes, he rides.”
Reason #1 for praise, God is great in the heavens.
But not only is God great in the heavens, he is also…
Reason #2 supreme over the earth (5-9).
Look at vv. 5-9 while I read Genesis 1. Can you hear the creation account?
And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
We tend to call the world around us “nature” as though it is self-existing. But David attributes supremacy over the planet to God alone. It is a supernatural creation. You covered the earth with the waters. You spoke and they fled. The mountains and valleys took the places you assigned. You drew a line for the waters and said: “they shall not pass.” Reason #2, God is supreme over the earth.
God is also…
Reason #3, the giver of life-sustaining waters (10-18).
Here David’s song does variation on a theme. In an arid land like Israel, water was scarce. But God took care of that. You make the water appear out of nowhere. Springs to sustain your birds and animals. Even the mountaintops you provide for – bringing rain to water them. You cause the grass to grow. You made good plants for man to cultivate – grain for bread, grapes for wine. You provide for the animals and you gladden the heart of man. Just as Genesis 2 says, God is the giver of life-sustaining waters.
Reason #4 God is maker of time (19-23).
“Night and day,” David says, “they were your idea” On the fourth day, you made the sun and the moon to govern them. You even appointed that the beasts stalk their prey (which you provide) at night so that man can labor by day. What didn’t you think of? You are the maker of time.
David can’t even get through his meditation on creation without erupting into praise. Look at verse 24:
“O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.”
The poet Gerard Manly Hopkins wrote, “the world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out like shining from shook foil.” Everywhere David looks, he sees God’s beauty and excellence. It is as though he is saying, “Look at that! Isn’t he amazing? Look at that! Isn’t he majestic? Look at that! Isn’t he wise! So David like a good songwriter, even puts in verse 24 as a bridge — pointing back at God’s works in vv1-23 and pointing forward to God’s creatures in vv25-30!
Because…
Reason #5 God is maker of the sea and its creatures (25-26).
Even the Leviathan, which makes Job shiver in his boots, you made on Day Five so it could play in the sea. Since the waters are under your sovereign control, what once was a barrier is now a route for travel and trade. Isn’t he something? God is the maker of the sea and its creatures.
The whole account crescendos in the final reason David gives…
Reason #6, God is creator and sustainer of all creatures (27-30).
All these — the beasts and the birds, the plants and the trees, the whales and the wombat — they all look to you. You, God, are at the center of it all. When you give, when you open, when you hide, when you take away…all creation waits on you. You care for them. None escape your notice. Because you are the creator and sustainer of all things.
So, David with Genesis in mind and the Spirit’s poetic inspiration gives us six reasons creation should cause us to bless the Lord. God is great in the heavens, he is supreme over the earth, he is the giver of life-sustaining waters, he made and governs time, he oversees the oceans and its amazing creatures, and he is the creator and sustainer of all things. Creation displays his handiwork. All of it testifies to his power and divine nature.
If we have eyes to see it, every blade of grass, every multi-colored sunset, every microscopic organism, every mighty beast, every mathematical equation shouts the glory of God. We inhabit a world “set on fire with praise.”
No wonder David begins in v 1 by exclaiming: O YHWH, my God you are very great! In fact, the Hebrew might be better rendered – “you have become magnificent. You have clothed yourself with splendor and majesty.” Your works redound to your glory! Everything in the created order is a mirror reflecting back to God the wisdom and beauty and goodness that he is, himself. Lord, give us the eyes to see!
So we’ve seen the call to praise (v1), David’s six-fold cause for praise (vv1-30); now, thirdly, (vv31-35) the consummation of praise.
3. The Consummation of Praise (31-35)
All that David has considered now fuels his final refrain in verses 31-35:
“May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works, who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke!” (vv31-32)
Notice two striking things about this verse. First, it is a plea. “May the glory of the Lord endure forever. May the Lord rejoice in his works.” David feels God’s greatness so deeply that his prayers line up with God’s design. “Yes, God. You are glorious, and so may your glory be seen! May your people delight in you and all that you are.”
But notice that second prayer in verse 31. “May the Lord rejoice in his works.” Not “May your people, rejoice in your works,” but “may the Lord rejoice.” God delights in his works. We know this, because that’s God’s refrain in Genesis: “And God saw that it was good.” The earth and seas. Good! The plants and the trees. Good! The moon, sun, and stars. Good! The creepy crawlies and the fish and the birds and the sea creatures and the great beasts and the livestock. Yes, Good! Man and woman, in my own image. Very good!
God rejoices in his work because it reflects him. It shows off his manifold excellencies. All of creation simultaneously every moment of every day since God spoke the universe into existence declares what is true — that God is the most admirable, beautiful, wise, good, generous, glorious being in the universe. And we were created to share in his joy.
This God-centeredness of God might throw us off balance. Is it off-putting that God, through David in Psalm 104, commands his own praise? C.S. Lewis at first thought that it seemed no different than a vain woman craving compliments. But listen to what he concluded:
“…the most obvious fact about praise – whether of God or anything – [had] strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise…The world rings with praise – lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game – praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors [and so on]….I had not noticed…that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: ‘isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?’ The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us as regards the supremely valuable what we delight to do – what indeed we can’t help doing – about everything else we value.”
David praises what is supremely valuable. He does what we are made and delight to do. He rejoices in God being God. And sings about it!
“I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.” (vv33-34)
But the singing must not stop with him. Look how he ends his song.
“Bless the Lord O my soul. Praise the Lord!” (35b)
David moves beyond calling his soul to bless the Lord to summoning all people to do the same. “Praise the Lord” is the first use of “hallelujah” in the Psalter. It is a you-plural not a you-singular. Northern English speakers don’t have a category for this, but my eastern Kentucky relatives would say it right, “Praise the Lord, y’all. All y’all.” And that’s because, as Lewis continues, calling others to praise God “doesn’t merely express the enjoyment, it is its appointed consummation” — it brings praise to its fullest completion.
David’s joy is made complete by calling us to praise the Lord by us joining in that praise. That is what this Psalm is for. Like Longfellow’s Paul Revere’s Ride, Psalm 104 captures an important story in a memorable way. It reminds us of something that really matters. But ultimately, it does something to us.
Don Paterson says that when a poet writes a poem he’s creating a little machine that when operated by a reader, recreates in them the experience the poem is trying to preserve. When we operate Psalm 104, it evokes our joy in God. It summons us to express that joy in praise and blessing. And it calls us to consummate that joy by sharing it with others.
But neither David nor us can know this joy without addressing the most serious problem.
Let sinners be consumed from the earth and let the wicked be no more! (v 35a)
At first, I found this an odd thing for David to say in his great crescendo of praise. But he is reminding us that Genesis 3 comes after Genesis 1 and 2. Human beings were made to receive creation as a gift and enjoy and rejoice in what it tells us about the one for whom we were made. But we turned the gold into idols halfway to Canaan. We worship created things rather than the Creator. While creation shouts that we were made for joy in God, so often we say “that’s nice” and go back to scrolling on our devices.
David longs for a day when this outrage will finally be addressed. That sin that he sees traces of in verse 29. Paul tells us that even creation has been subjected to futility because of our rebellion. Things are not the way that they should be.
The Lord’s Supper
And that is what brings us to the table. Because in the fullness of time, God himself came to address that rebellion. He entered into his own creation to free us from enslavement to inferior joys. To save us from the penalty our idolatry justly deserves. In mercy and kindness, to restore to us the fullness of his joy; His life for ours; our sin for his righteousness that we might be to praise of his glory. That is what we celebrate here.
Maybe in this moment you can’t bless the Lord because you haven’t given up your idols; you haven’t put all your hope in Jesus for the forgiveness of sin. Friend there is no better time than now. Jesus says to you, I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst (Jn 6.35). Go to him.